Joystick Rebuild

7/19/20 I finally was able to find an original Venture joystick for this machine. It was fairly rusted and needed a good cleaning before I put it into the cab. This joystick has a lot of parts and seems to be super over-engineered! The large ball top is held on by what looks like green loctite so you'll want to take a heat gun to the shaft before attempting to unscrew it. It didn't take much heat, maybe a minute or two on high setting, and had to hit it with heat again about half way through unscrewing the ball top. The aluminum metal spacers on the top are the smaller ones and were quite worn so I found replacements made of nylon and also stainless so I had a couple options. The small spacers are 5/16" OD, 3/16" ID, and 7/16" long. The ID is listed sometimes as being able to accommodate a #10 screw size.

I used a variety of cleaning methods for the parts. Most were cleaned in a rotary tumbler I got from Harbor Freight Tools using stainless media and combination of vinegar/polish to get the heavy stuff off. Walnut shell media for polishing and finishing. The shaft I soaked in vinegar for an hour or two, then hand cleaned/polished it since it wouldn't fit in the tumbler.

Parts:

94639A779 Off-White Nylon Unthreaded Spacer, 5/16" OD, 7/16" Long, for Number 10 Screw Size. Bought from McMaster-Carr for $11.92 (100 pack)

92320A765 18-8 Stainless Steel Unthreaded Spacer, 5/16" OD, 7/16" Long, for Number 10 Screw Size. Bought from McMaster-Carr for $1.85 each

126874 Stainless steel flat washers #6 Hillman. Bought a 36pk from Lowes for $2.28 (Lowes item #409468). You'll need 8 of these if you plan to replace the washers on the leaf switches. 2 for each switch x 4 switches = 8 washers.

LEAFSWW Leaf Switches - Repro Wico switches from Arcadeshop.com for $4.95 each.

Here's the exploded view (picture from manual). There is a note in the manual to lubricate inside diameter of part 14 which is the actuator on bottom of joystick shaft. Mine had washers between the small spacers and top plate but I did not reinstall them since they aren't in the manual and not on any other pics of Venture sticks I've seen so likely not needed.

Joystick 'before' pics. There is a good amount of rust on the spring rings and shaft.

Joystick disassembled for parts cleaning:

These are the different small spacers. Left=original, middle=nylon, right=stainless. I ended up using the stainless.

This is the joystick after all parts were cleaned and putting it back together: